IZO

An exhibition of the naive art of the USSR opens at the Shchusev architecture museum tomorrow; the exhibition reflects the work of the amateur art circles that were encouraged from the 1930s (RIA Novosti, in Russian).

A look at the  show organised by Maria Baibakova at the Red October factory (John Varoli/Bloomberg).

Review of the Baibakov Art Projects show at the Red October factory space, with slide-show (Milena Orlova/Kommersant, in Russian).

A brief commentary on the opening of the exhibition curated by Maria Baibakova (IZO, earlier) in the factory space recently used by Larry Gagosian; it has been overshadowed in everyone's minds by the Kandinsky Prize controversy (kotomish, in Russian):

I couldn't find anything out about the exhibition, everyone just said something vague... the one thing that three independent sources from financial circles did say is that if she messes up this first exhibition, she's off to New York.

Art and China's Revolution (Asia Society); short review (Village Voice).

Contemporary Russian shows in New York (Katya Kazakina/Bloomberg):

"If today you are showing a New York-based artist from the former Soviet Union, people pay attention,'' said Chelsea dealer Stefan Stux. "There's something of a consequence.''

Presumably because gallerists are on holiday or in Miami, Vinzavod is almost empty of shows apart from the Pirosmani exhibition at Proun Gallery. The paintings have been assembled from private collections by Marina Loshchak. Three, I noticed, including one particularly fine work, are the property of Zurab Tsereteli's Moscow Museum of Contemporary Art, so his money hasn't been completely wasted. Two, including what I reckoned to be the top work of the show, a large scene of Georgian businessmen at table, belong to Shalva Breus, owner of Art Chronicle magazine. Many of them are painted in oil on oilcloth, not a great medium for the longterm because it cracks up. I also heard that many of the Pirosmani works in museums in Georgia are kept in appalling conditions and are in a bad state of repair.

Olga Chernysheva at White Space, Russian Dreams at Bass Museum, Miami (Jackie Wullschlager/FT).

Magnificence of the Tsars at the V&A (FT):

The wardrobe of the boy emperor Peter II forms the centrepiece of this historic show. “Half of the exhibition is dedicated to Peter’s perfectly preserved wardrobe,” says Dr Lesley Miller, senior fashion curator at the V&A. “It is a lucky survivor and a rare, precious story that can be told only because Peter died young of smallpox and his wardrobe was spirited away to storage at the Kremlin.”

Oleg Vassiliev at Faggionato Fine Art (Spectator) (thanks, MK).

Ekaterina Degot interviews Boris Grois about his new exhibition, Religion as Medium, in Karlsruhe (Open Space, in Russian):

it's about the phenomenon of the return of religion in the form of aggressive, dynamic, radical movements; and about the media practice of these movements

Another building-block of the New Ukrainian History (National Post):

Mysteries of Ancient Ukraine: the Remarkable Trypilian Culture (5400 - 2700 B.C.) opens tomorrow [at the Royal Ontario Museum], filling a large part of the third floor of the Toronto museum with a collection largely consisting of earthenware containers and trinkets. ... For some, the Trypilans’ humble possessions will lack the pizazz of the golden wares of the Scythians, another Ukrainian culture that starred in a hit exhibition in 2001. Still, Kateryna Yushchenko showed keen interest in them as [the show's curator Krzysztof] Ciuk showed the Ukrainian First Lady around the exhibition yesterday. “What is it?” she asked, pointing to a bisected, bear-shaped earthenware object.  “I don’t know,” Ciuk replied, underlining the mystery that surrounds the Trypilians, who were only discovered in 1896 by Vikenty Khvoika.

Incredibly rare, probably unique commercial-gallery exhibition of 19 pictures by Pirosmani at Proun Gallery, Moscow, curated by Marina Loshak; there are apparently only two works by the artist in Russian museums (Kommersant, in Russian; with slideshow).

The Byzantium show at the Royal Academy is fascinating; it contains some very big, very powerful icons, and loads of other mesmerising stuff, gospels and objets, some from Russian museums. It was gratifying, too, to be able to decipher some of the Greek names or abbreviations on paint-surfaces that are maybe 800 years old. I am an ignoramus and didn't know, or more likely had forgotten, that Saint Luke "is credited as the first Christian iconographer, painting icons of the Virgin Mary from life, some of which exist to this day" (Monastery Icons). No-one bothered telling me that at art schol. But the Russian artist with whom I walked around the show, brought up and trained in Russia, did know it.

Marat Guelman writes (galerist, in Russian):

The foundation which promised to pay for the exhibition Russian Povera in the Russian Museum says, "You'll have to wait a little." The foundation's connected to Gazprom. So basically, Kiev, pay for your gas, it's very important.

At E. K. Artbyuro, Moscow, a rare look at 1980s Odessa conceptualists (Kommersant, in Russian). One of them was Alexander Petrelli, known as Pocket (Карман), whose conceptualism has now metamorphosed into the well-known Overcoat Gallery.

Early C20 art from the Russian Museum is on view now and through January 18 at Caixa Girona Fontana d'Or Cultural Center (Artdaily).

Suspended: Georgia/Russia – Encounter on Different Terrain opens at the New Kunstforum, Cologne, on 4 December. It features Russian and Georgian artists working in Germany, including Yuri Albert, Evgeni Dybsky, Natalia Nikitin, Vadim Zakharov, Gia Edzgveradze and Tamara K. E.

Email received:

Dear Friends and Colleagues, if you are traveling to NY… You are cordially invited to From Non-Conformism to Feminisms: Russian Women Artists from the Kolodzei Art Foundation. Curated by Natalia Kolodzei. Opening Reception Tuesday, December 9, 2008, from 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm.
The exhibition is from November 13, 2008 to February 7, 2009 at Chelsea Art Museum, Home of The Miotte Foundation, 556 West 22nd Street (@ 11th Ave), New York, New York 10011. Tuesday through Saturday 11 to 6, Thursday 11 to 8. + 1.212.255.0719, www.chelseaartmuseum.org

A retrospective of work by Valentin Sidorov, who was 80 this year, has opened at the Tretyakov Gallery (Kommersant, in Russian; with short slide-show).

A review of the Kandinsky Prize show (Max Seddon/Moscow Times).

Russian porcelain at Hillwood to 31 December (Washington Post).

London Nobs such as Viscount Linley (of Christies) and Lord Bruce Dundas (of Asprey) travel to the ends of the earth, aka Siberia, to view Scythian gold (PR Newswire).

Russian Dreams, curated by Olga Sviblova, at the Bass Museum of Art, Miami Beach, from 4 December (Bass Museum) (thanks, YT).

An exhibition of damaged paintings from the National Art Gallery of South Ossetia is taking place in St Petersburg (NTV, with video; in Russian).

A preview of Byzantium at the Royal Academy, London (Bettany Hughes/Times)

Opening of the new Saatchi Gallery last night. It's a beautiful space on four floors just off the fashionable Kings Road: really, a great addition to the London gallery scene. Mr Saatchi's first show is of Chinese contemporary art. On the top floor in the Project Room: tabloid newspaper paintings by Aleksandra Mir; and in the Phillips de Pury Gallery, Julian Schnabel. Below: Matthew Bown looking a bit fragile with Julian Schnabel. Loads more photos below the cut: I don't know who most of the people are.

Guelman Gallery is planning an exhibition of work by Alexander Brodsky in the spring of 2009; it will be Brodsky's first major show in Russia for several years. Brodsky has turned out to be the star turn of the Guelman-curated Russian Povera show in Perm. His last solo show was at Feldman Gallery, New York, earlier this year.

Andrei Erofeev in hospital talking about the impossibility of staging a planned Sotsart exhibition in Hungary. Sponsors - Gasprom, RosIZO - pulled out, the latter calling the show a "clear provocation of the Russian people." An interesting moment towards the end: Erofeev is asked why his show needs official sanction. Answer: because it needs to be insured, the pieces are so valuable. So in their own way (as in the West) market forces conspire against dissident art.

Photo report from the Marat Guelman-curated, Sergei Gordeev-sponsored show Russian Povera (Русское Бедное) in Perm (drugoi).

The Santori Temposan museum in Japan has cancelled at the last moment a show of Russian avant-garde art from the Moscow Museum of Contemporary Art because, in the opinion of experts, the exhibition contains seven fakes (gazeta.ru, in Russian). This scandal has been brewing for a little while, and it appears that more than one Japanese museum is unhappy (IZO, earlier). There is in fact, considerable scepticism in the Moscow art world about the authenticity of avant-garde works bought - all comparatively recently - for the Moscow Museum of Contemporary Art.

An exhibition of work by Nikolai Timkov will open to the public at the Meridian International Centre in Washington, DC, on November 14 (Meridian) (thanks, MLV). Timkov is one of the Soviet realist painters most highly rated by the market (related earlier post).

A review of the Marat Guelman-curated museum show Russian Povera (Русское Бедное) in Perm; the review contrasts the povera art with Hirst's diamond-coated creations (business-class.su, in Russian). Related earlier post.

A review of Russia-related contemporary shows in New York: Michael Chelbin, Yevgeny Fiks and Aleksei Kallima (Artcal).

91 works by the Kukryniksy trio from the Mamontov collection on display at the Ethnological Museum, Vienna (Art Daily). Below: Flexible Leadership, one of their many wartime Windows of TASS; I had this one on my wall for a while.

Ilya Kabakov in conversation with Ekaterina Degot (Open Space, in Russian). And a distinctly contrarian view from viketz (art4.ru, in Russian).

A video report on the Kabakov retrospective that began at the Garage last night (Telekanal Kultura, in Russian). And below his new work A Game of Tennis, opening at the Guelman Gallery tomorrow.

More Kabakov: Ekaterina Degot's video interview (Telekanal Kultura, in Russian); and the 17 September opening at Vinzavod will be streamed live on the Ministry of Culture website (Vesti, in Russian).

Gagosian Gallery prepares a $300 million show in Moscow to coincide with Kabakov at the Garage (WSJ):

The latest endeavor has been expensive for the gallery, complicated by the perceived security risks in doing business in Moscow. Axa Art and Hiscox, the gallery's insurers, insisted that the gallery transform the empty chocolate factory into a veritable fortress, complete with a climate-control system, metal detectors, hidden cameras, panic button at the reception desk, and at least 14 armed guards, including one to patrol the factory grounds around the clock. The rate to insure these artworks was also 25% higher than usual

Russian art shows in Lund, Sweden: Eisenstein, Muratova, Mikhailov, Chernysheva (e-flux).

A season of films by Russians, to accompany a forthcoming show of American Artists from the Russian Empire at the Fred Jones Jr Museum of Art, University of Oklahoma (NewsOK.com)

Full details of the extensive Ilya and Emilia Kabakov show which opens in Moscow on 16 September (Lenta.ru, in Russian).

The Gagosian Gallery exhibition in Moscow in September will include work Hirst, Koons, Serra, De Kooning, Murakami and other post-war art-stars. Alpha Bank, which collaborated on the first Gagosian Gallery show in Russia, held in Barvikha earlier this year, will not be supporting this event: negotiations were broken off a few days ago (Kommersant, in Russian).

Boris Mikhailov retrospective at Vinzavod (Milena Orlova/Kommersant, in Russian; with short slide-show).

Laura K. Jones looks at Russian art and artists in London and Moscow (Artnet).

Roman Abramovich has stepped in to plug the Kabakov show's financial gap (John Varoli/Bloomberg).

The exhibition Total Enlightenment / Moscow Conceptual Art 1960-90, curated by Boris Grois, has opened at the Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt (Kommersant, in Russian).

A brief slide-show from Struggling for the Banner: Soviet Art between Trotsky and Stalin, 1926-1936 (Kommersant).

Charles Saatchi has bought a huge installation by Georgi Ostretsov from the show Laughterlife that opened last night at Paradise Row; rival collector Anita Zabludowicz has commissioned a similar piece.

Two shows of Russian art open in London this evening: AES at RS&A Limited (Times), and a group show called Laughterlife curated by Maria Baibakova at Paradise Row.